The more things change … well, you know

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Longtime fans of the Marist College women’s basketball team might notice something similar when the Red Foxes open the NCAA tournament today.

For while the players on the court are different, the men guiding each team remain the same as when Marist and Georgia met in the 2006 NCAA tournament.

I asked the Red Foxes’ head coach, Brian Giorgis, if having opposed Andy Landers’ Bulldogs twice before — the two teams also played in Poughkeepsie during the 2005-06 season — helped give him any insight into what Marist might face today in the Big Dance.

“If you watch 2006’s game versus now,” Giorgis told me, “it’s obviously different players, but they still get after you and they are still athletic. This team of his is probably the most balanced that I have seen — they average 13, 11, 12 and 9 (points per game). It’s kind of fun to try to defend against them — we don’t have to work on the gimmick defenses of trying to match up because they have so many weapons. We have to attack them with what we have.”

When a local television sports anchor asked Landers about the NCAA tournament rematch with Marist, particularly the odds of playing the same small school from upstate New York, the Bulldogs’ coach said he was more interested in the Xs and Os of the game.

“All this little bitty stuff and upstate New York stuff, it doesn’t do anything for me,” Landers said.